Systems and methods of discriminating between argon and helium gases for enhanced safety of medical devices

Abstract

Systems and methods for discriminating between various gases, e.g., argon and helium, for enhanced safety of medical devices are provided. The present disclosure may take the form of a dedicated-use embodiment where a specific gas, helium for example, is expected, and an enabling or “Go” signal is issued when that gas is detected, or an inhibitory or “No-Go” signal when a gas is present that is not identified as helium. Alternately, a control line or input command can be used to select between helium and argon as the expected gas and then issue the appropriate “Go/No-Go” signal, depending on which gas is identified.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. An apparatus for use with a medical device comprising:
 at least one gas input configured to receive a gas; 
 an acoustic absorption type gas discriminator coupled to the at least one gas input and configured to determine a type of the received gas, the acoustic absorption type gas discriminator further configured to generate a signal indicative of the received gas type; and 
 a controller configured to receive the received gas type signal, compare the received gas type to an expected gas type and generate a control signal to enable or disable the medical device based on the comparison, 
 wherein the expected gas type is a combination of at least two different types of gas. 
 
     
     
       2. The apparatus as in  claim 1 , wherein the medical device is an electrosurgical generator. 
     
     
       3. The apparatus as in  claim 1 , wherein the medical device is an electrosurgical handpiece. 
     
     
       4. The apparatus as in  claim 1 , further comprising at least one gas output configured to supply the inputted gas to an electrosurgical handpiece. 
     
     
       5. The apparatus as in  claim 4 , further comprising a user interface configured for inputting to the controller the expected gas type. 
     
     
       6. The apparatus as in  claim 1 , wherein the at least two different types of gas include helium and argon. 
     
     
       7. The apparatus as in  claim 1 , wherein the at least two different types of gas include helium and oxygen. 
     
     
       8. The apparatus as in  claim 1 , further comprising a non-transitory memory coupled to the controller, wherein the non-transitory memory stores a database including signal values for combinations of the at least two different types of gas. 
     
     
       9. The apparatus as in  claim 8 , wherein the controller scans the signal values of the database to determine the received gas type based on the received gas type signal. 
     
     
       10. The apparatus as in  claim 9 , further comprising a user interface that indicates the determined received gas type. 
     
     
       11. The apparatus as in  claim 1 , further comprising a non-transitory memory coupled to the controller, wherein the non-transitory memory stores a database including signal values for ratio combinations of the at least two different types of gas. 
     
     
       12. The apparatus as in  claim 11 , wherein the controller scans the signal values of the database to determine the ratio combination of the at least two different types of gas based on the received gas type signal. 
     
     
       13. The apparatus as in  claim 12 , further comprising a user interface that indicates the determined ratio combination of the at least two different types of gas.